Kent Hovind on claims for bacterial evolution

I don't follow creationist ministries any more, mainly because they cover so many different topics while I'm trying to keep my focus on the few I feel I understand best, but I did just happen to be watching Chris Pinto's film, Megiddo II (It's at You Tube) in which there is a brief interview with Kent Hovind who neatly sums up one of the main problems:  The claim that mutations are the fuel of evolution doesn't hold up because mutations don't increase but decrease "information" -- or as I've been putting it, they destroy DNA. 

The term "information" is used to refer to the DNA sequence of chemicals -- which can also be called a "code" or a "recipe" -- that produces a given trait in the organism.  A mutation is a change in the sequence of chemicals that make up a segment of the DNA which constitutes a gene, which of course changes the code or recipe or information of that gene that produces the trait. 

That's all mutations do, they alter DNA which is a destructive process, changing the sequence of a gene so that its function is interfered with, often producing no immediate detectable change in the organism, but in thousands of instances producing identifiable genetic disease.  Unqualified beneficial results do not occur.   Kent Hovind pointed out that the claim that mutations in bacteria demonstrate evolution because they evolve immunity to antibiotics is bogus, because the way this happens is that the mutation simply destroys the ability of the bacteria to latch on to the antibiotic.  It's a destructive process, which may have a very temporary beneficial effect, just as the fact that the sickle cell mutation protects against malaria is a beneficial effect, but overall the organism has been damaged, and information has been lost, not gained, the opposite of anything that would lead to evolution.  It was good to hear that spelled out.

Archaeology again falsely claims to have disproved the Flood

Coyote at EvC is restating his ridiculous idea of how the Flood of Noah has been disproved. Another evolutionist PRATT (Point Refuted A Thousand Times) which he repeats at every opportunity.

The idea that the world was created in 7 days and a biblical flood and the tower of babel was assumed as fact by me as soon as I read about such things in the bible. I was 6 years old at the time. Every sermon I listened to from then on confirmed that belief. Every family member of mine believed it except my stepfather who was catholic. It wasn't until 8th grade biology that I heard anything different. It wasn't until I was an adult until I started hearing serious discussions about evolution.

Some of these issues science can readily test.

As just one example, the global flood ca. 4,350 years ago was tested initially by creationist geologists seeking to document that flood. They could not do so, and had to admit that the flood did not occur as described. This capitulation occurred in the early 1800s, long before Darwin.

They had wrong ideas about what such a flood would have done in those days, in fact very much the same wrong ideas Coyote is promoting here, the silly idea that you could "detect" such a flood at a certain depth having left certain remains while the rest of the landscape is completely undisturbed.

Since then the evidence that there was no global flood ca. 4,350 years ago has become overwheming. It is so easy to disprove this that any archaeologist can do it.

I've done it in my own research. What one needs to do is find an archaeological site that cross-cuts the 4,350 year time period. A site that does so by thousands of years is best. Then you examine what occurred before and after that time period, and you look to see if there is any evidence of a major discontinuity at that time.

This is utterly absurd. First of all of course there is no reason to trust such dating of any site. There is no such thing as a settlement that goes back before 4350 years ago, this is all false.

But the main problem is the idea that if there had been a worldwide flood it could be detected in a before-and-after scenario that left any evidence whatever of such a settlement from before the flood occurred. The Flood of Noah absolutely obliterated everything that had pre-existed it and rearranged the land into deep layers of separate sediments containing the bodies of everything that was killed in it. Anything recognizable as a human settlement has been built since the Flood.
This conversation continues over a few posts. Here's the next one.

Can you point me at any papers on this? Thanks.

Just look in any general archaeology text. You will find descriptions of culture sequences from several parts of the world.

None include a flood event with total population and culture disruption at that time period.

Egypt is a good example. Their writings began before the date ascribed to the flood and continued beyond that date. There was no break as would have been seen from a global flood.

Again there is this idea that you could detect a worldwide flood as having been "included" within culture sequences. No, such a flood would have absolutely destroyed any culture that pre-existed it, leaving not a trace. And again he trusts in the dating of artifacts that there is no reason to trust, as the writings of Egypt.

Just another evolutionist PRATT, Coyote. As you guys are always saying to the creationists, you've been shown to be wrong about this, give it up.